


Reprieve

by Champagne



Series: Displaced [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Pictured: It's All Helen's Fault, Time Travel, s1 Jon, s4 Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22801519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Champagne/pseuds/Champagne
Summary: He sees none of the familiar scars dotting Jon’s face. There is no sign of any pock marks, no scrapes or cuts left untreated long enough to scar--This Jon might as well be a phantom.A Season 4 Martin stumbles across a Season 1 Jon. Also Helen is there.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: Displaced [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639171
Comments: 24
Kudos: 873





	Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> hello im back on my bullshit and here with respite part 2: electric boogaloo. this sort of came about on accident if im being honest, but i have no regrets.
> 
> HUGE thanks yet again to [osirisjones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallhorizons/pseuds/smallhorizons) for being just an absolutely wonderful beta. i owe you my life

Martin notices him as soon as he turns the corner. He stops and stares for a moment, watching Jon look around as if confused. His back is to Martin and from what little he can see of him, somehow looks more put together than Martin has seen in a very long time.

Regardless, Martin shakes his head and starts walking again, pulling the fog of the Lonely around himself as easily as an old jacket, warming and chilling his bones at the same time. He can hear Jon muttering as he gets closer, something about things changing without him noticing, about how nobody is around when he needs them, and he sounds irritated and tired, but. It’s different, somehow, than the last time Martin heard irritation in Jon’s voice. It doesn’t have that familiar undertone, the slightest touch of panic, like irritation is his primary method of coping with everything happening around him.

Jon turns around just as Martin gets close, only a few feet between them, and then Martin stops, stares again, feeling something clench painfully in his gut not unlike dread or panic.

He sees none of the familiar scars dotting Jon’s face. There is no sign of any pock marks, no scrapes or cuts left untreated long enough to scar-- Martin looks down at his hands, clenched with annoyance at his sides, and sees no burn. That dread and panic twist into something hot, something close to anger, and he has half a mind to think Peter planned this, sent him down this way specifically to run into Jon, but he's never known Peter to think that far ahead.

Or to possess any manner of time travel capabilities, but there was still a lot he didn’t know about Peter.

Old memories surface, years old and faded around the edges, but he remembers clearly enough. An older, exhausted, scarred and worn Jon asleep in his bed, in his flat-- Martin takes this memory and pushes it down, tries to stop the swell of too many emotions at the thought of Jon, as he knows him now, somehow making his way to Martin’s flat to steal as much sleep as possible. He doesn’t know when those memories were forgotten, but if he had to wager a guess, it was somewhere between Jon being accused of murder and falling into a coma.

This Jon might as well be a phantom, considering how unscarred and naive he is.

Martin doesn’t realize the cold coat has fallen away until Jon glares right at him, and then he almost drops the paperwork Peter told him to deliver. He should be invisible, nothing but a passing chill, and yet Jon is glaring with a strong, familiar frustration on his face. A dozen memories fly through Martin’s head in the few seconds before Jon speaks.

“Martin,” he snaps, and crosses his arms. “Where _is_ everyone?”

If Jon notices the unearthly chill, he says nothing. If he notices the light crackling of static, he says nothing about that either. “Not here,” Martin says, because he doesn’t know what else to say to that. He’s not about to tell this foolish, naive, untouched-- mostly untouched Jon about Peter Lukas and the Forsaken just to explain that a lot of the Institute staff was shipped off into the Lonely because Peter is more willing to sacrifice people than solve petty disputes.

“Yes, I can see that,” Jon hisses, and rakes his eyes up and down the hallway again, like someone might have popped up in the few minutes since they started talking. “Have you seen Sasha or Tim, then? Surely--” Martin doesn’t hear the rest of Jon’s sentence, because suddenly there’s tinnitus screeching in his ears.

The realization hits him like a truck. He knows this Jon is from before Prentiss attacked the institute because of the lack of worm holes trailing down the side of his face and neck. He’s from before everything started spiraling downhill too quickly to stop. He knows Sasha. The _real_ Sasha. He feels the painful need, nearly an uncontrollable impulse, to ask this Jon about her, because it’s still the real Sasha for him and that feels almost like a slight, now. It doesn’t feel fair that Martin doesn’t remember her but to Jon the idea is probably inconceivable that she could be replaced by some Thing. He wants to ask what she looked like, what her laugh was like, about every small detail Jon might remember, but he doesn’t. He clamps down on those questions by biting his tongue until he tastes blood.

Jon is giving him a look somewhere between concerned and irritated. He almost forgot just how short tempered and waspish Jon used to be. And somehow, it makes his heart throb and ache with loss and loneliness, and he’s equal parts grateful and angry at Peter Lukas’ influence over him. It’s as pleasurable as it is painful.

“Sorry,” Martin says, finally finding his voice again. He doesn’t sound at all off kilter, which he is grateful for-- but he’s also pretty sure Jon wouldn’t have noticed if he was. “What was that?”

Jon huffs, and that ache comes back in a flare before fading again. “Are you quite alright?” he asks, and it’s lost somewhere behind the mask of impatience, but Martin thinks he hears concern in Jon’s voice. “You’re even more absentminded than usual.”

“I’m fine.” Martin shakes his head, and tries to muster up a smile. “Sorry, just feeling a little...off.”

Jon rolls his eyes and turns away from him, but Martin can see him worry at the corner of his lip in a way he vividly, and embarrassingly, remembers from years ago, when he was finally free of Prentiss. His first thought was to go to the Institute and tell Jon what happened, because at the time he didn’t know what else he could have done, given the supernatural elements of the situation. And when he told Jon, Jon chewed on the corner of his lip as he considered something briefly, before suggesting Martin stay in the archives instead of trying to go back to his flat.

It’s a punch in the chest, to see the early signs of the Jon he knows now: a worrier, reckless, self deprecating, self sacrificing, and clinging to any semblance of sanity and normalcy he can find. Suggesting Martin stay in the archives, risking his life for one of the stupid Beholding tape recorders, calling himself an idiot-- 

Martin decides that, maybe this time, Peter did plan this. The painful loneliness, the desperate desire to go back to how things once were, aligns with what Peter is trying to get out of him anyway.

“If you’re feeling sick, then go home,” Jon finally says, and sounds annoyed, but his face is crumpled in concern and tinted with suspicion. “I don’t need you getting everyone else sick.”

Martin laughs, because something about this is just too amusing in the worst way, and Jon’s expression quickly shifts into a heated glare.

“Right, yeah.” Martin waves him off, and starts walking again. He only gets a step away before Jon moves to keep pace with him, his arms still crossed and still glaring at him. “Let me just drop this stuff off, and I’ll go home.”

“Just go home right now,” Jon grumbles. “What are you even doing?”

“P--” Martin bites his tongue again, and shakes his head. “Elias asked me to bring this paperwork somewhere,” he says, and can tell immediately from the way Jon hums that he doesn’t believe a word Martin said. “I don’t know why, he just saw me and told me to deliver it,” he adds, and Jon hums again but there’s less suspicion in it.

He can feel a familiar sharp chill run down his spine and does his best to ignore it. Jon shivers and rubs at his arms, but doesn’t bring attention to that as he says instead, “I suppose I’ll accompany you.”

He sounds near petulant, and Martin can’t help but smile. “Are you lost, Jon?” he asks, because he can’t resist teasing him, not when this is his only chance at pretending to be just a normal person with a normal (if it can even be called that) crush on his boss. Ex boss. He aches for the simpler times again, as Jon snorts and barks out a denial. Jon’s ears are red, and it sits like a knife between his ribs to know that Jon blushes with his ears.

Martin hates that this entire interaction makes him feel disconnected and alone, because even as they walk in silence, he feels like he’s from a completely different world than the Jon beside him. It was just a few years ago that everything was as normal as the Magnus Institute could be, with the weirdest part of his day being minor crimes to gather information about statements.

What a long road he’s traveled, since then. He thinks about the Entities, the avatars he’s met, the rituals they’ve stopped, and wonders just how much longer this Jon has before being dragged into all of it and left to drown.

He pauses when he spots a familiar yellow door further down the hall, out of place amongst the dark wood of the rest of the doors lining the hallway. Jon stops beside him, an eyebrow raised in a silent question, and he frowns when Martin forces a smile.

“Here’s your stop,” he says, and Jon grumbles something about not being lost. “This door should bring you back down to the archives.” He hesitates before opening it, but on the other side is just a staircase, one Martin doesn’t recognize, but he’s grateful either way. Helen appears to be working with him and not against him right now.

Jon lets out a huff and doesn’t move, not right away. He frowns at Martin and furrows his brow, staring for just too long of a moment, before he looks down the staircase and mutters, “Go home, Martin. Tim and Sasha can handle the work for the rest of the day.”

Martin watches him descend the stairs until he turns on a landing and disappears from sight.

Helen steps out from behind the door when he closes it, and Martin jumps at her sudden appearance.

“My apologies,” she says, but her low laughter echoes painfully in his ears anyway.

Martin rubs his face and groans. “Hi, Helen.” This is the most interaction he’s had with other people in weeks, and he’s already worn out. Helen smiles at him with too many teeth, and he can tell from the way the corners of her eyes crinkle with amusement that she’s not going to leave him alone anytime soon.

“He’s changed quite a bit,” she says, and leans against the closed yellow door with her hands behind her back.

Martin forces himself not to answer, as anger and annoyance and exhaustion and caring all war inside of him.

“And yet,” she says, and hums thoughtfully. “He’s stayed the same, hasn’t he?”

Martin takes a measured breath, and lets it out as steadily as he can. “Why do this?”

“I have my own agenda,” she says, and Martin knows it’s as straightforward of an answer as he’ll ever get from her about it. She adds, “You can’t tell me this was a negative experience without lying, can you?”

Martin exhales through his nose, and doesn’t answer.

Helen laughs again, and it grates against his ears and makes him grind his teeth. “Martin,” she says, and the way she says his name rakes claws down his back and makes him shudder. “There is a point to this.”

“Sure,” he snaps, and watches Helen throw her head back as if to laugh, but she doesn’t make a sound.

“Patience, Martin,” she said, and her voice shakes with contained laughter.

Martin feels a spike of panic when she pushes off of her door and grabs the handle. He must make some kind of noise, because Helen pauses and turns, looking at him over her shoulder with a slight smirk.

“What--” Martin knows what he wants to ask, the question hitting him like a sack of bricks. It could be risky, but he decides after a brief moment of indecision to go ahead and ask anyway. The worst that could happen is being eaten by the Distortion, and honestly that wasn’t too terrible of a fate. Maybe even a blessing, if he was feeling awful enough about his situation at the moment he was devoured. “What about before? With Jon, in my flat.”

Because now he swears, for just a moment, his bedroom door was yellow. The memories are hazy, of the older Jon disappearing into his bedroom instead of leaving through the front door. He thinks about how the door to his bedroom was soft blue, or maybe even a light grey, but for an instant it was as bright as sunshine. He isn’t sure if he’s forcing the memory, applying his current knowledge and understanding to a past experience because it makes it fit a little better into reality, or if it’s new clarity. Especially given recent events.

“Oh, that.” Helen chuckles, and it’s layered and complicated but doesn’t hurt to hear. “The Archivist wanted a safe place to rest, so I gave him one.” She turns the knob and opens the door, and pauses to put a long, distorted finger to her lips just as Martin begins to talk. “Patience, Martin.”

She closes the door before he can get a word out, and he heaves a sigh when he blinks and the door becomes an empty wall.

“Right.” He sighs again, and continues on his way to his destination, trying very hard not to think about what just happened.

**Author's Note:**

> and here's ANOTHER shoutout to the magnus writers discord for being the best thing that's happened to me and my writing. you all are amazing and writing is hard but we do it anyway!


End file.
